Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the 2011 New York Yankees knows they have one of the best offensive attacks in the league. They are edging out the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers for the most runs scored in baseball this season, and it’s hard to find a true weakness in the lineup to exploit. The Yankees hit at home and on the road, against lefties and righties, against fly-ball pitchers and ground-ball pitchers. With apologies to the late great Dr. Seuss, this team would score ...

Me? I’m following Aaron Harang’s 12 - 3 season…just to see if he returns that potion to Throckmorton’s Curio Shop on time!

September is around the corner, that time of year when baseball fans pretend to care about that little sport called football. The pennant races and wild-card chases don’t look too dramatic right now, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of reasons to remain excited about the final five-plus weeks.

With five weeks remaining in the season, Granderson hasn’t just worked his way into the MVP conversation, he’s emerged as the favorite.

“With five weeks to go, I’d say he’s the front-runner,” one voter said. “But it’s a very close race.”

Granderson leads the league in runs, RBI, total bases, triples and extra-base hits, is second in home runs and slugging percentage and third in OPS. He also ranks in the top 12 in stolen bases, walks and on-base percentage, ...

We’ve noted before that Heyward is swinging more and accomplishing less. (His batting average and on-base percentage tell us that much.) We’ve also noted that this is the truly baffling part. Unlike, say, Jordan Schafer, who has struck out a lot at every level, Heyward arrived in the majors bearing the stamp of a young player who knew the strike zone and could work a count.

In recent weeks, the Brewers have been celebrating big hits by raising both arms in the air, a gesture that Prince Fielder says it began with his kids imitating characters from the animated movie, “Monsters, Inc.” Fielder did it after driving in both of his runs in Sunday’s win over the Mets.

Lately, even some routine singles have become cause for celebration. Is Roenicke OK with that? Not really.

Jorge Posada stepped up. And this was the at-bat that sparked this blog post. [Joakim] Soria’s first pitch was way off for a ball. His second looked to be about three or four inches outside—and the umpire called it a strike… Soria then threw a nifty little pitch—MLB defined it as a slider, but it looked more like a very tight curveball—at the knees on the outside corner for strike two. That was one heck of a pitch.

I come to the conclusion that it’s a fair deal for both sides. The Royals paid [Jeff] Francoeur his market value, more or less.

And with all that, I don’t like the deal.

The first reason for my skepticism is this: why now? Why hand out a multi-year deal in the middle of the season? This wouldn’t bother me so much if the Royals didn’t have an official policy of not negotiating contracts during the season. I mean, just ...

At Fangraphs, Pedroia ranks second in all of baseball in WAR, behind only Toronto’s Jose Bautista. That high standing is due to how loftily Fangraphs rates Pedroia’s defense at second base, since he ranks ninth in the offensive component of WAR, behind teammates Ellsbury and David Ortiz.

Not only is he listed as the best in the game at his position, Pedroia is also credited with saving more runs defensively than all but one player in baseball. ...

At the time, the right calf strain that sent Derek Jeter to the disabled list on June 14 appeared as though it would simply delay his chase for 3,000 hits by three weeks.

Two months later, the time off looks like a blessing in disguise.

In addition to getting healthy, Jeter used the time off to work on his swing with instructor Gary Denbo at the Yankees’ training complex in Tampa, Fla.
. . .
Since coming off the disabled list on July 4, Jeter has batted .339, reaching base at a .392 clip ...

Jayson Werth hit a three-run homer, Ross Detwiler took a four-hitter into the seventh inning and the Washington Nationals beat Arizona 4-1 Monday night to extend the Diamondbacks’ losing streak to a season-high six games.

Henry Blanco homered for the Diamondbacks, who have scored only seven runs in their last six games. Mired in its longest skid since a seven-game run in July 2010, Arizona now leads second-place San Francisco by just one game in the NL West.
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Nationals RHP Stephen ...

Monday, August 22, 2011

“We have six guys who can pitch in a pennant race, period,” Cashman said. “A.J. Burnett is having his typical terrible August. For whatever reason, he can’t pitch in August, I don’t know why. It is what it is. August is obviously not an effective month for him.”...Cashman added that Burnett “is not our No. 2 starter,” but hasn’t pitched poorly enough to be treated like “Oliver Perez.”

Kenny will host his final SportsCenter in early September, confirmed ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys. “Brian did great work for us. His contract was up and he found a new opportunity,” Soltys said Monday night.

Given his experience covering Major League Baseball, the veteran anchor/host could be a good fit with rival MLB Network, which has been competing with ESPN for TV talent and ...

As a matter of commentary, I have seen Bleacher Report and have been drawn to its allure while also being repelled by it. When King Kaufman was brought on – a highly respectable writer – one had to wonder, what was in the works? Recently, John Thorn penned work for BR, someone that’s incredibly respected and now MLB’s Official Historian.

The media landscape is changing. The fall of newspapers. The fall of AOL Fanhouse. The ...

Over the course of a season, I’m guessing it’s an impossible task for any player outside of the battery to be 100 percent dialed into every pitch of a 162-game season. The mind can wander, the mind can zone out, the mind can see something without seeing anything. It’s human nature.

But for the love of pete, you’d like to think that your defenders would at least be facing the right way each time the pitcher winds up and ...

“The Boston Red Sox signed their first black player in 1959, a utility infielder named “Pumpsie” Green.1 This was 12 years after the Brooklyn Dodgers broke the color line with Jackie Robinson. No other team in baseball dragged its feet on integration like the Red Sox. It wasn’t until 1965, in fact — 18 years after Robinson started at second base for the Dodgers — that Boston had its first full-time black player. Why?

The simple answer — that the Red Sox owner at the time, Tom Yawkey, was ...

In baseball, there are too many levels of leadership that always seems to lead to a breakdown at some point. People within an organization do not always know what their jobs are and therefore under perform or they step on other people’s toes because they try to do too much. Again, leadership is the key! If at the end of the day the team is struggling mightily and the vision is not taking hold after a period of time (often too well ...

Ivan Nova just might be running away with the American League Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award if he had not had to spend most of the month of July in the minor leagues because of the Yankees’ pitching logjam. Nova ran his winless streak to 10 starts with Sunday’s 3-0 victory over the Twins that completed a 5-2 trip for the Yanks, who are proving to be true road warriors.

Other young players who have inspired tirades from Gardenhire include infielders Trevor Plouffe and Danny Valencia.

After running some young outfielders through a relay drill Saturday, the manager said: “We’re doing all this stuff so we don’t have to tell them. We shouldn’t have to. They should learn this in the minor leagues.”

Q. It seems there’s a disconnect for some players between details and winning.

A. This stuff actually matters. But you preach it, and you talk about it enough, the ...

Catching up with Larry Jaster…including some bucketheaded quotes from McCarver.

Nothing quite like it had ever happened before, and nothing has equaled it since. A rookie and fifth starter on a Cardinals pitching staff that included Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton, along with Ray Washburn and Al Jackson, Jaster shut out the defending world champion Dodgers five consecutive times.

...“He did it almost entirely with one pitch — the fastball,” McCarver said. “I remember, ...

San Francisco’s Juan Marichal slugged Los Angeles catcher John Roseboro over the head with a bat in the third inning of Sunday’s game, triggering a wild melee between both teams.

Before the battle ended, Marichal swung his bat at Roseboro’s head several times and the Dodger catcher, blood trickling from a cut over his left eyebrow, pumped a right hand that seemed to clip the Giants’ pitcher in the face.

“You have to start using your brain and figuring out how to get hitters out,” [Jack] McKeon said after the Marlins lost 4-3 on Sunday as the San Diego Padres completed a four-game sweep.
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The Marlins have lost 15 of 17 games.

“Some of these guys had better wake up,” McKeon said. “This is the time of the year where you’d better be a salesman and show your wares and how good you are. How bad do you want to be a major league player? This is not a picnic. You’re not on ...

Before there were computer databases and automated scorebooks assembling minor league baseball stats, there was Bill Weiss.

Weiss, one of the most significant statisticians in baseball history, died on Aug. 16 at his home in San Mateo, Calif. He was 86.

Few have loved stats more than Weiss. Back at a time where compiling statistics was a labor intensive job done by hand, Weiss compiled the official stats for numerous leagues around the West. Before he joined Howe Sportsdata in 1988, Weiss was ...